Image via CrunchBase

There's a bit of a row going on at the moment, thanks to Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel, about whether text or video is king of the internet. Guys, the answer isn't one or the other. It comes back down to who you want to see it.

Just because we're a group that uses Digg or Reddit or YouTube all the time doesn't mean that we're the only people on the internet. My grandparents just got their first computer this Christmas and are only now showing up online. I doubt that Scoble's videos, beautifully produced as they are, would hold much interest. Nor would some of my friends care much for Rubel's well written text articles, preferring instead to check out the latest animated memes.

The real trick is to go with what your audience expects and wants. If you're producing content for people new to the internet, go with text, primarily. If you blog about big names on the 'net and interviews with them, video will probably do you better.

That out of the way, I'd like to pick at some of Steve's points. He lays out five reasons why text beats video, and I think that a few of them are totally off the mark:

• It's scannable – Reading is not the same as watching video. Sure, a lot of us can read quickly, but some of us absorb information better with more visual forms of communication. (I have a very bright friend who has reading problems but can absorb anything from conversation or demonstration.)
• Three letters: SEO – Okay, this one's pretty true. Improvements need to be made to online video regarding metadata, so to improve video search results.
• The workplace – This is changing. Not quickly enough, but within five to ten years, tops, the stigma of watching video on the job, as long as it's work related, won't be there any more.
• Mobile Devices – Shenanigans! I have a six year old Audiovox Pocket PC. How difficult is it for me to watch an AVI or MPEG video? Copy it to the device, and open it in Media Player. It's just as simple for newer devices, too. If watching video on the iPhone is more difficult than that, that's a problem for Apple to fix.
• Distribution – Mostly shenanigans. While clipping a segment of a video isn't that simple (we still need video editing tools for that) it's not hard to distribute or syndicate. And it'll only be a matter of time until YouTube starts letting people link to particular segments of videos, trust me.

The real problem is relying on video exclusively. Scoble doesn't do that. He continues to text blog, as well as swamp everyone on FriendFeed and Twitter with high volumes of textual content. In fact, he probably puts out more text items per day than videos in half a decade!

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